Materiality is one of the most contested concepts in contemporary art, often overlooked in critical academic writing. Material generally denotes substances that will undergo further processes. It indicates the forces of production at that time. The term 'material' describes not…
F.S Aijazuddin recounts how acclaimed author Ved Mehta, son of Dr. Amolak Ram Mehta, visited his father’s home in Lahore at 11 Temple Road not, as assumed, “to reclaim property, but to reclaim his childhood”1; the house was then allotted…
The curator, Irfan Gul Dahri, asks a rhetorical question in the two-artist show titled Self-Extended. The question is: “What is a person without the things they project their selves into?” Implicit in this rhetorical question is the assumption that there…
Trending lately is a (welcomed) wave of inclusivity that has engulfed the world. Be it an individual demand or a more public endeavor—such as by a political or cultural association—there seem to be new spaces being created for acknowledging and…
In his famous novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell (1903-1950) clearly expresses a concept by giving chapter 19 an incipit that read: “He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.” Orwell's stinging tone…
Since time immemorial man has been attempting to make sense of the complex world around him; compressing and simplifying it through doctrines and scriptures, organizing a multifarious existence into easily digestible absolutes. However, in the current age of globalization and…
‘‘The creative art is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative art.’’1 In ‘The Creative…
A solo show in New York is a big deal for any artist and a museum show is the stuff that dreams are made of. This summer, Shahzia Sikander accomplished just that. However, the challenges in this path for any…
While standing face to face with Faiza Butt’s large scale romanticized painting at Grosvenor Gallery, London, the artist’s trajectory echoes in my mind. The works are an ode to nature, where the title Super Natural doesn’t refer to otherworldly beings;…
The area of Anarkali extends south from the Lohari Gate of the old Walled City to across the British-era Mall—a wide tree-lined boulevard. Therefore, it encompasses a large swathe of the city and consists of colonial structures, a residential area1 and…